


Esme Cullen 1895 - 1930(ish)

by IGuessImWritingFanficNow



Series: The Cullen's - A History [2]
Category: Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Child Loss, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Loss of Child, Songfic, baby loss, esme cullen deserves the world, songfic kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:00:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 2,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27945680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IGuessImWritingFanficNow/pseuds/IGuessImWritingFanficNow
Summary: so I did another one. I'm an absolute sucker for carlesme and absolutely adore the dynamics of early CarlislexEsme and Esme, Carlisle and Edward becoming an odd little family. If I finish this one and the Carlisle one Edward is probably up nextas always, recommend listening to the playlist for the full effect, link below.playlist: open.spotify.com/playlist/1Gb4m6mA88KmFh6B5LiNDK?si=e_xvA3J2QhCE89ZyQlIndQif the fic is shit at least enjoy some banging tunes and a lovely photo of Liz Reaser whilst you listen
Relationships: Carlisle Cullen/Esme Cullen, Edward Cullen & Esme Cullen
Series: The Cullen's - A History [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2036551
Kudos: 3





	1. Daydreaming | Paramore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> esme cullen deserves the world ok? I'll fight anyone who says otherwise. also paramore chapter because of course

**_Ohio, 1895 onward_ **

After raising two boys, Mrs Platt had dreamed of a little girl with soft rosy cheeks, who could help her around the house, she could cross stitch with and eventually raise to be the perfect young woman.

Esme Platt is not that little girl. Her head is in the clouds, running free in the fields of her family’s farm, singing at the top of her lungs, and returning home for dinner in a state that would make her Grandmother cry.

As Esme gets older, this sense of wonder with the world doesn’t fade. The other girls her age are beginning to grow up and mature, showing more interest in dresses and kissing and boys – but Esme couldn’t care less. She would much rather be up a tree, sketchpad in hand, looking out at the world and dreaming about exploring it.

She spends half her life daydreaming, and she’s determined to make them all reality


	2. Absolutely Smitten | Dodie Clark

_**1911, Ohio** _

Esme had never been interested in boys. She couldn’t care less about them if she were completely honest. That all changed the day she fell out of that damn tree.

Her mother was calling her for lunch, and she panicked, climbing down from her usual tree far too quickly, slipping and landing badly on her leg. Her usual doctor wasn’t available, so she had to be carted to the city hospital in Columbus. It was in that tiny doctor’s office, sitting in utter agony whilst her mother and a nurse endlessly fussed over her, that _he_ walked in.

She could have sworn it felt like her heart stopped. And then he smiled at her, and it definitely stopped.

His hands were gentle, prodding at her leg as he bandaged it and she tried not to yelp out in pain, biting her lip till it bled. Something inside of her shifted, and in that tiny doctor’s office, she found herself gushing out all her silly little dreams about the future, skin feeling like it was on fire when he gently smiled and whispered never to let them go. No one had ever told her that before.

As she left the office, helped out by her mother and a pair of crutches, he asked for her name, repeating it softly to himself after she told him. That’s when she knew that it was too late.

She was absolutely smitten with Doctor Cullen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is my favourite chapter. Am I allowed to say that as the author? oh well. this is my favourite chapter
> 
> (also pssst. spot the vampire references)


	3. 26 | Paramore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter has references to implied abuse, but no details or anything

_**Ohio, 1918** _

Esme was trying. She was trying so hard to hold on to any semblance of hope but could feel herself falling into a dark hole she wasn’t sure she would come out of.

Her aging parents, wishing to see her married before they died had started to pressure her into courtships, and Esme had caved. Her husband, Charles Evenson, was a good man.

At least publicly.

In private things were different. She tries to hold on to all those dreams she once had, when she was free to run free on her family’s farm, not a care in the world, her biggest worry being what state her dress would be that night.

When she is alone (which is both almost always and never enough) she talks aloud about her plans to leave everything behind and move out west, her childhood dreams of running to the middle of nowhere and teaching for a living. Sometimes she talks to no one in particular, other times she imagines it’s the kind doctor from forever ago who made her feel like anything was possible.

These dreams are what stops her from breaking. She knows what awaits her in reality, so she clings onto those dreams with everything she has. And then he comes home, and they all shatter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> paramore again. stop looking at me like that, last one ok?
> 
> also, Charles Evanson? i see you its on sight. i hate Charles Evanson. All my homies hate Charles Evanson


	4. Sledgehammer | Rihanna

_**Ohio, 1920** _

Esme had reached rock bottom. She had nothing left. No way out, no escape.

Her parents had turned away, anyone she tried to open up to brushing her off. To doctors, she was simply a clumsy housewife. It was only a matter of time until he killed her.

And then it happened. An ache in her lower back, feeling completely exhausted all the time, and the random nausea. She told no one. Especially not _him_. That little bump was her light in so much darkness. She knew there and then that she had to escape, for her child’s sake.

She waited until he had left for work that day, kissed his rough cheek goodbye the way a good wife would and then grabbed as many clothes and jewellery she could fit into a purse, gathered all her strength, and left. Her wedding ring was her train ticket out of town, and a pearl necklace from her mother in law was her lodgings.

She had made it. She was free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> very smeyer like to give a name to Esme's abusive husband but not her child. disappointed but not suprised
> 
> also this chapters song has lived rent free in my mind since 2016 and the release of star trek beyond. underrated bop honestly


	5. Rockabye (Acoustic Version) | The Mayries

_**1920\. Ashland, Wisconsin** _

Life for Esme is not easy and it only gets harder.

She gets a job teaching at an elementary school in Ashland. The children are wonderful. Her story is that she is a war widow, with no family left. The landlady takes pity on her and discounts her rent for the tiny apartment so that her pay from her teaching job is enough for food as well.

As the months go by, she begins to heal, she sees her life with her and her baby. His life will be nothing like hers. He will grow up safe and loved, and she will do all she can to ensure that. His father will come nowhere near him. There’s something inside her that can just feel that it will be a boy.

He is born in late January the following year, and she was right. A gorgeous baby boy with blonde hair and looks nothing like his father. The nurses congratulate her and leave her with her son, as she sings him to sleep for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok this was a tough one. These two deserved so much better


	6. Where’s My Love (alternate version) | SYML

_**1921, Ashland** _

It happens quickly.

The doctors are concerned about something, she’s not sure what. It goes from bad to worse so fast. His tiny body attached to all these devices, trying to help him through, his breathing is harsh and painful. She wishes she could do something.

Eventually, it becomes clear that there’s nothing that they can do. He is placed in a cot next to her bed. She doesn’t sleep once in the three days she watches over him, scared of what she’ll miss. He looks so tiny sleeping next to her.

It happens quickly.

She’s holding him in her arms, softly singing to him as he takes his final breath and all the suffering passes. For him at least.

It happens quickly.

Almost as soon as he’s taken out of her arms really. She has nothing left. She makes the decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one was even harder. Esme's story truly breaks my heart
> 
> also if anyone is interested, I have always gone with the name Joseph for Esme's son


	7. Golden | Fall Out Boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter includes references to suicide

_**1921, Ashland** _

The walk from the hospital to where she is now feels like both the longest and shortest moment of her life. Walking through the town, the city lights almost blinding. Watching as everyone runs home to get out of the way of the oncoming storm, going about their everyday lives as if Esme’s isn’t crumbling around her.

The wind whips her hair, rain plastering her face – or is it tears? She isn’t sure anymore. She approaches the edge, peering over at the dark waters below, whispers a prayer, and steps off.

Voices swirl around her, she isn’t sure where they are coming from or what they are saying. Something cold touches her hand…death taking her hand?. The cold suddenly moves from her hand, to her neck, and then a voice, soft and warm before it is replaced with something else.

Fire is spreading throughout her entire body. She was expecting flames, the bible had taught her that much. The fire is unforgiving and unrelenting, but the cold on her hand never leaves, and that distant gentle voice is somehow louder than all her agony.


	8. Love at First Sight

_**March 1921, Ashland (3 days later)** _

Eventually, after what feels like an eternity, the fire passes.

Esme opens her eyes, and she knows there and then that she has to be dreaming, because there is no way that the person sitting by her bedside is who she thinks it is. She recognises him instantly.

There is a voice from behind her and his head snaps up, meeting her eyes and it’s like she’s sixteen again. Her memory didn’t do him justice, he almost seems to be glowing. His lips move but she has no clue what he says to her, she is too lost in his eyes. She swears he hasn’t aged a day, hair still that perfect shade of gold it was ten years ago, not a wrinkle on his pale face either.

She has to be dead…is this heaven? He certainly looks like an angel.

Laughter comes from the doorway and she turns to see a young boy, maybe fifteen? He has his eyes, slightly darker but a similar shade. His son most likely, and she feels her heart sink a little. If he has a son then he most likely has a wife. Of course he does Esme, no woman in her right mind would turn him down.

She registers the sound of her own name in that odd accent she remembers from her youth and turns to face him, the first words since she woke up in the unfamiliar four-poster bed slip out of her mouth before she can even stop them.

_'It’s you’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok I know there's more going on in Esme's life than 'hot doctor sitting by my bed', and she's still in a lot of pain after the loss of Joseph, but this song (to me at least) feels like the sun peaking out from behind the clouds just after the rain, and that's what Carlisle randomly appearing in her life again feels like :)


	9. Build Me Up, Buttercup

_**May 1921, outskirts of Ashland** _

She hasn’t been this happy in years.

Yes, the pain is still there, and nights are the hardest, and the eyes are certainly an adjustment. Everything about her new life is an adjustment really, but the days are wonderful, and her boys are there to help her through the rough patches.

Edward, an utter sweetheart who spends hours with her as she explores every inch of a garden he’s seen a million times, playing odd tunes on his piano that she remembers from somewhere but isn’t too sure where. The mind-reading thing takes a little while to get used to though, however.

And Doctor Cullen. Carlisle. Her gentle doctor with a heart of gold. The more she gets to know him, the harder she falls. They spend hours talking about absolutely everything, he’s just so easy to open up to. All he needs to do is give her that smile and she feels like that smitten sixteen year old – thank god she can’t blush anymore, or it would never leave her face.

He encourages her in ways no one ever has before, buying her books about every subject she shows even the slightest interest in, bringing home sketch pads, easels, canvases, and paints, surprising her with that breathtakingly sheepish smile.

Yes, her new life has its drawbacks, and the bad days are still there, but she’s got the two of them to lean on now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Esme Carlisle and Edward finding a family in each other make me unreasonably emotional. I could genuinely write an essay on their dynamics
> 
> anyway please if you haven't been listen to the playlist for this chapter. It adds so much to this chapter and gets the vibes across :


	10. The Only Exception | Paramore

_**July 1921, Outskirts of** **Ashlan** **d** _

Esme’s experience with love began and ended with _him_. She would have been happy to settle in the western frontier teaching for a living if her parents hadn’t forced her to marry, would have been more than content with a quiet life in her tiny Ashland apartment, baby boy in her arms.

Love was never really a priority before, and certainly not after.

But now? Now all it took was one look at the quiet doctor and it was if she needed it like she once needed air.

Everything about Carlisle was the complete opposite to _him_. Hands soft in the places that were rough and callous, he could crush rock in them, yet he was nothing but gentle. Eyes a warm and gentle golden instead of a cold and hard brown, soft blonde hair replacing dark and greasy. He was taller than him as well, but Esme never felt small next to him.

The biggest difference, however, was his heart. It was vast, open, and endless but above all, it was undoubtedly good. One look at him and all the power that _he_ once held over her was gone. He only had to smile at her all the walls she had built around her to protect herself came crumbling down.

Esme hadn’t really thought much of soulmates or true love before him, but now, she was well on her way to believing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember how I said the one earlier was the last Paramore song? I lied soz
> 
> this song just screams Esme falling for Carlisle for so many reasons. She's been scorned by life so many times and has every reason to be cynical of love, but Carlisle was everything she didn't even realise that she needed


	11. What a Wonderful World | Louis Armstrong

_**December, 1921. Outskirts of Ashland** _

Slowly but surely, the bad days came less, and less, and the good days lasted so much longer.

Esme began to see the beauty in the world again, the sky seemed bluer, and the leaves on the trees brighter. Slowly, with the help of Carlisle and Edward, she began to take the broken pieces of herself and put herself back together.

For the first time in she doesn’t even know how long, she was happy, she felt safe, and she had things that she had never had before.

She had a home she felt safe in. She might have lost her son, and he would never be replaced, but she had gained a new one in Edward. And for the first time in her life, a husband who loved her more than life itself.

Esme might technically be dead, but she had never felt more alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok I know I blatantly stole Bella's line from bd part 2 but Esme is the OG Mrs Cullen. Edward is Mr Swan if anything


	12. Impossible Year | Panic! At The Disco

_**1927** _

She really isn’t surprised. It was a matter of time really. Everything was far too perfect for far too long.

Edward had left them, she had lost her child, _her son_ , she felt like she couldn’t breathe. She had already lost one son, she didn’t think she could stand to lose another.

And when Edward had left, he had taken her Carlisle with him. Her rock, the one man who could pull her through this had abandoned her. He hadn’t spoken in months, only the odd word here and there, had barely even looked at her. She knew what it meant. He had to have blamed her, she knows that she certainly did.

The argument that led to his departure was her fault. That boy, that foolish big-hearted boy had gone back to Columbus and found him. He came back, eyes glowing red with pride and explained. It was the worst fight the two of them had ever had, Esme too stunned to even intervene. She just sat listening to it become more and more heated, until lines were crossed.

She watched as fury turned to shock, then utter pain and then into utter rage. Before she could even say anything, Edward had thrown the front door open and ran. The house was silent from then on.

A year of deafening silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, the early days of Esme, Carlisle and Edward are more interesting than the entire saga


	13. Walking After You | Foo Fighters

_**1928** _

Curtains. That’s what it took to get him to break. Esme had mentioned that the colour of the curtains didn’t really match the rest of the kitchen. Carlisle had disagreed, and suddenly everything rushed to the surface.

The pain, the loneliness, and the grief over losing not just her son but her husband as well, and then he was in her arms, sobbing.

Things were different after that, not necessarily better but different. A lot of late-night talks, a lot more crying and hard work until things began to mend. It isn’t until one late night after a hunting trip, months after their first argument, the two tangled up together under the blankets that things start to feel more whole.

After that, it was easier, and they come out the other side stronger. The two of them still feel the pain of Edwards absence, the knowledge, and the hurt over the path he has chosen, but they lean on each other and attempt to keep moving together.


	14. Blue Skies | Jim Reeves

_**1931** _

She is in the garden when she catches his scent. Its almost masked by the roses, the only reason she even senses him is due to her senses still being slightly stronger, not quite worn off from her newborn year. She calls out to him and hears Carlisle drop whatever book he’s been reading that day almost instantly.

When she catches up to him, he’s like a deer in the headlights. His not gold but not quite red eyes meeting hers, and she almost knocks him over with the force of her hug, refusing to let him go.

She hears Carlisle approach, but stop a few feet behind them and she lets Edward go long for Carlisle to extend a hand towards Edward, who takes it before pulling him into a bone-crushing hug as Carlisle mutters endless apologies.

Esme lets a sob out, and one of them (she’s not really sure who) pulls her into the hug. The three of them, kneeling in the middle of the forest, clinging on to each other for dear life. She just hopes he's here to stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to write more for Esme and get it up to the same number of chapters as Carlisle's one but I'm struggling to find songs that work for chapters I've got planned so stay tuned

**Author's Note:**

> Esme Cullen deserves the world and I'll fight anyone who says otherwise ok? also strap in for a lot of Paramore/Hayley Williams whoops
> 
> also you have no idea how many times I accidentally wrote Cullen instead of Platt, driving myself mental


End file.
